This article demonstrates how behavioural economics (BE) is being employed to improve public and business policies. View Summary

This article demonstrates how behavioural economics (BE) is being employed to improve public and business policies.

BE is moving beyond academia into real world scenarios where its concepts are being tested and perfected amongst a wider demographic.

Governments in US, UK and Australia are using robust experiments in the form of Randomised Controlled Trials, seeing success in areas including tax and debt collection, energy savings, pensions enrolment, charitable giving and encouraging job seekers back to work.

Businesses and public bodies are also applying BE insights across a range of areas, including brands such as Allianz, Unilever, Barclays, Diageo, Opower and eBay.

Allianz devised a toolkit that assesses how effective employer pension schemes are from a behavioural finance perspective.

2

How cars really get bought

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Rob Ellis, Market Leader, Quarter 2, 2015, pp. 42-44

This article draws on a new study to explain how cars are really purchased and illustrate the flaws in the dominant funnel purchase model. View Summary

This article draws on a new study to explain how cars are really purchased and illustrate the flaws in the dominant funnel purchase model.

The study followed people through the entire car-buying process rather than conduct a simple post-purchase survey.

It tracked the effects of ads, the influence of test drives and the importance of word-of-mouth, dealers and online research.

The purchase funnel model was then replaced with a new image of the organic and evolving process of choosing a new car.

3

Health and the high street: How retail, food and drink brands are shaping UK health with content

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Research on Warc, NewsCred, February 2015

This article demonstrates how UK consumers want to make better, more confident choices around health and wellbeing and how relevant brands can make the most of these opportunities. View Summary

This article demonstrates how UK consumers want to make better, more confident choices around health and wellbeing and how relevant brands can make the most of these opportunities.

47% of British consumers say they have become more health-conscious in the past 12 months but just 27% feel informed regarding health issues; brands can fill this gap because 76% say brands have a responsibility to provide consumers with health content.

Health-related content is improving consumer opinion of the brands that offer it but transparency is essential as consumers are suspicious of the agenda behind branded-food health content - the 65 plus age group is the most sceptical.

Consumers are particularly keen for supermarket, food and drinks brands to be more involved in delivering this kind of content but need them to go beyond calorie counts, which consumers find less useful than fat and sugar content, condition specific information and disease prevention information.

Examples of how brands have met this challenge include Boots WebMD, the pharmacy chain's health advice site, Sainsbury's Active Kids, the supermarket's scheme that encourages activity in children, and M&S Eat Well, the supermarket's campaign to help customers choose healthier diets.

This article examines why people are not saving enough for retirement and behavioural economics can encourage people to save towards their retirement earlier in working life and become more engaged in the process. View Summary

This article examines why people are not saving enough for retirement and behavioural economics can encourage people to save towards their retirement earlier in working life and become more engaged in the process.

Psychological barriers to saving for retirement are that most people tend towards being optimistic, carefree and procrastinatory, tend to discount the future and live for the present, struggle to imagine their future selves and some are not predisposed towards saving and planning.

Tools that are overcoming saving barriers include government regulation to auto-enrol people into a workplace pension, implementing auto-consolidation of multiple pensions, asking employees to pre-commit to increasing contributions automatically on the advent of their next pay rise, priming people with new reference points, and reframing retirement.

By changing the language used around pension payments, contributions can be reframed as "paying yourself" rather than "paying the pension", and can help avoid the illusion of wealth, by communicating how much the pension would equate as projected monthly income, rather than a lump sum.

This article explains why people are poor at saving money and suggests four applications of behavioural science that brands are using to help people to save more. View Summary

This article explains why people are poor at saving money and suggests four applications of behavioural science that brands are using to help people to save more.

The proportion of income that is saved in the UK peaked in 1979, at an average of 14%, and since then rates have fallen dramatically - as low as 2% in 2008, rising to 5% in 2013; the US has also averaged 5% savings over the past 6 years.

Barriers to saving are the increased ease of spending and finite resources of self-control, genetic or learned disposition towards better self-control, feeling the pain of spending more acutely, having different motivations for saving or in-built (over-)optimism about the future.

Four ways to save more and more successfully: earmarking and partitioning savings, building a savings habit with regular triggers and small steps, improving saving through use of simple rules of thumb, and reframing saving.

Examples of cognitive biases that get in the way of good money management include poor mental accounting facilities, the use of cards instead of cash to make spending less visible, the 'power of now' that discounts future pain, and inertia around switching current accounts.

Steps that help consumers stay in credit include current accounts that don't provide overdrafts at all and online forecasting that provides automatic feedback to customers about the state of their balance.

Financial providers are helping consumers with their mental accounting by splitting customers' money into virtual accounts to organise their money and ensure there is enough to pay bills.

7

Media Planning Toolkit: Planning TV

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Tony Regan, Warc Best Practice, January 2015

This article explains how TV has changed - and continues to change - maintaining a prime position in advertisers' media planning despite gloomy predictions. View Summary

This article explains how TV has changed - and continues to change - maintaining a prime position in advertisers' media planning despite gloomy predictions.

Healthy live TV viewing figures mask big changes in viewing habits as mobile devices extend viewing to times and places TV previously did not reach.

Planning needs to decide how TV will work with other paid media, how it will drive owned media and how elements of live and on-demand spots will work together.

This should involve reconsidering some received wisdoms about TV including response TV, and taking into account the mindsets of viewers.

Looking to the future, planners need to watch how programmatic advertising is developing for TV, and how smart TVs and ad-free subscription services continue to change behaviour.

8

Build brands and build loyalty

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Giles Hedger, Admap, January 2015, pp. 20-22

This article argues that instead of addressing 'brand loyalty' as a separate marketing objective, it should be considered the natural consequence of good brand building. View Summary

This article argues that instead of addressing 'brand loyalty' as a separate marketing objective, it should be considered the natural consequence of good brand building.

Part of the problem with making brand loyalty an objective is that it is difficult to understand and measure, with three proxy measures for loyalty being flawed indicators.

Looking at how brands that command high levels of loyalty achieved it shows the difficulty in forming a brand loyalty strategy - their successes are not easily replicated.

There are two types of loyalty - that based on unalterable facts, such as being the only provider, and that based on personal choice, which comes from free markets, good infrastructure and informed consumers.

As marketing more generally moves away from 'push' and towards 'pull', work around brand loyalty should move in the same direction, focussing on how the brand interacts with people and the world.

Using a case study from ITV, the UK broadcaster, this paper explains how research using high quality audio-visual footage captured from a participants' perspective - using wearable technology - can answer client questions and generate insight. View Summary

Using a case study from ITV, the UK broadcaster, this paper explains how research using high quality audio-visual footage captured from a participants' perspective - using wearable technology - can answer client questions and generate insight.

ITV wanted to understand how people were using its mobile app with TV show the X Factor and learn how to increase engagement and commercial value of the app.

'EyeCams', lightweight glasses that record visual and audio from the wearer's perspective, were used to understand how people were multiscreening whilst watching the X Factor.

This was followed up with an online community and an in-app quantitative questionnaire, with all data sources brought together in academic analysis inspired by behavioural psychology.

Research results led to the app being simplified to demand less attention from users, captured interaction with ads that helped the ad sales team, and helped ITV understand how ads could be made more appealing.

13

The power of the oblique: The indirect route to maximising the value of your insight

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Rhiannon Price and Steve Hill, ESOMAR, Qualitative, November 2014

This paper addresses criticisms of the market research industry and argues that taking into account the corporate context and working in an oblique manner is more effective than simply answering the research brief. View Summary

This paper addresses criticisms of the market research industry and argues that taking into account the corporate context and working in an oblique manner is more effective than simply answering the research brief.

Market Research has struggled to keep up with changes in culture and adoption of technology, understand unconscious consumer motivations, and integrate with client businesses, but has made some progress.

In response, market research has moved from providing 'data' to 'insight', with practitioners positioning themselves as interpretive experts.

The industry needs to further evolve to becoming research consultants working in partnership with clients to address their business challenges.

One example is work with Land Rover, the car manufacturer, where the research provider treated the client's employees as consumers and marketed research findings to them.

14

The trust transaction: How content can transform the way banks connect with people

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Research on Warc, Newscred, October 2014

This report argues that banking brands should use content marketing to help build trust in the UK, but it will only work if they deliver useful, high quality and easy to understand content. View Summary

This report argues that banking brands should use content marketing to help build trust in the UK, but it will only work if they deliver useful, high quality and easy to understand content.

Britain's recession in 2008/9 was widely perceived to be caused by banks, with the whole industry cast as villains and economic growth not improving this poor opinion.

There is low trust in the industry overall, but a few challenger brands attract higher levels of trust by taking a more transparent approach.

Useful content is one important way that banking brands can start to rebuild trust with consumers, but it requires high quality content produced by specially recruited editorial teams.

15

Mercedes: How a change in body language transformed the fortunes of Mercedes-Benz

This case study demonstrates how Transport for London and the Olympic Delivery Authority communicated with Londoners to prevent breakdown in the public transport network during the London 2012 Olympic Games. View Summary

This case study demonstrates how Transport for London and the Olympic Delivery Authority communicated with Londoners to prevent breakdown in the public transport network during the London 2012 Olympic Games.

In the run up to the Olympics, London anticipated an unprecedented transport surge and modelling showed that the transport network would not cope with demand, even after a £6.5bn infrastructure upgrade.

A 'Travel Demand Management' programme was devised, investing 0.3% of the Games' budget to encourage London to 'Get ahead of the Games' by changing its travel behaviours.

This case study demonstrates how Foster's, the Australian lager brand, revitalised its brand in the UK by reassessing men's attitudes towards social drinking and regained its market leader position. View Summary

This case study demonstrates how Foster's, the Australian lager brand, revitalised its brand in the UK by reassessing men's attitudes towards social drinking and regained its market leader position.

Forty years old and once an advertising icon, Foster's had lost its way and lost touch with its drinkers.

It looked beneath the ritual of male camaraderie so that Foster's could learn to reconnect with a new generation of UK men and found that the modern man no longer subscribed to the 'tribal drinker' ethos.

Mates were acting as a sounding board for how to deal with issues of the day, using humour to help soothe each other's insecurities.

A TV-led campaign featured Australia's famed 'no worries' attitude and delivered £32 of revenue per £1 spent on advertising.

18

Should've Gone to Specsavers: A far-sighted view of advertising's role in building a business over 30 years

This case study explains how Specsavers, the optician retail chain, grew from its launch in 1984 to become an international brand with the largest market share in the UK. View Summary

This case study explains how Specsavers, the optician retail chain, grew from its launch in 1984 to become an international brand with the largest market share in the UK.

In the early 1980s, opticians were closer to GPs than business people, until The Opticians Act 1984 allowed qualified opticians to advertise for the first time and started the push towards opticians becoming more like retailers.

Having invested nearly £500m in advertising over 30 years, Specsavers commands a dominant share of voice and consistent revenue growth.

Specsavers' has used a strategy of continuous presence at relatively high spend levels, a broad appeal, commitment to humour as an advertising tool and distinctive, familiar brand assets that build memory structure.

This has all contributed to £1.1bn of incremental profit over 30 years.

This case study demonstrates how the British Heart Foundation (BHF) charity combined a well-known celebrity, catchy song and easy-to-remember formula to increase the likelihood of the British public trying cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in the event of a cardiac arrest. View Summary

This case study demonstrates how the British Heart Foundation (BHF) charity combined a well-known celebrity, catchy song and easy-to-remember formula to increase the likelihood of the British public trying cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in the event of a cardiac arrest.

Every year around 60,000 people suffer a cardiac arrest out of hospital in the UK, whilst only an average of 7% (4,200) survive.

The 'You've been Vinnied' campaign brought together Vinnie Jones, the former football player and actor, and a song by the Bee Gees to teach Britain how to step in and tackle a cardiac arrest before the arrival of a paramedic.

The campaign achieved 86% recognition in four weeks, increased people's likelihood to perform 'Hands-only CPR' from 54% to 71%, and 30 lives to date have been directly saved by people who saw the campaign and employed the technique.

With the cost to society of each fatality measured at £1.6m, minus the BHF's financial investment, this equates to a saving to society of £48.5m.

This case study demonstrates how Pancreatic Cancer Action (PCA) publicised the symptoms of pancreatic cancer in the UK, in order to improve the chance of early diagnosis. View Summary

This case study demonstrates how Pancreatic Cancer Action (PCA) publicised the symptoms of pancreatic cancer in the UK, in order to improve the chance of early diagnosis.

Pancreatic cancer is the fifth biggest cause of cancer death in the UK, with only 3% surviving.

Based on insights gleaned from real pancreatic cancer sufferers, a campaign was built around the idea of 'I wish I had a more survivable cancer', which brought to life the horrific realisation that for the majority, by the time they were diagnosed, it was already too late.

The campaign relied on press and outdoor media coverage to get the best visibility and generated awareness in over a quarter of the adult UK population, securing PCA an audience with the Health Secretary.

The campaign could deliver a potential ROMI of 4000, saving the National Health Service millions of pounds.

This case study demonstrates how Renault's launch of its new Dacia car brand into the UK market overcame prejudice directed at cheaper cars to deliver the best first year result ever recorded by a new car brand. View Summary

This case study demonstrates how Renault's launch of its new Dacia car brand into the UK market overcame prejudice directed at cheaper cars to deliver the best first year result ever recorded by a new car brand.

Renault, a mass-market, mid-range automotive brand, was losing sales through UK consumers' recession strategies, so decided to introduce its "value" brand, Dacia, which was formerly state-owned by Romania.

The combination of low-cost and eastern European origins stigmatised the brand in the UK, and before it had even been launched was already the butt of many jokes.

The launch campaign used communications to make people proud of, not embarrassed by, their choice, by poking fun at traditional car advertising and championing no-nonsense frugality instead.

This case study describes how Evian, the bottled water brand, communicated the brands' connection to the benefits of being young to influential professionals in Belgium, France, Switzerland and the UK. View Summary

This case study describes how Evian, the bottled water brand, communicated the brands' connection to the benefits of being young to influential professionals in Belgium, France, Switzerland and the UK.

Evian wanted to connect the brand to a deep meaning of youth with digital consumers in mind, and to overcome perceived indifference of bottled water and tap water.

The campaign allowed people to meet their 'inner baby' with this theme expanded from TV and outdoor ads to a mobile app, increasing campaign engagement.

Sales volume and market share rose in all markets, with improved brand metrics and 130 million views globally.

This case study explains how Expedia, the online travel agent, used one emotional campaign strategy to tackle two different challenges in the UK and France. View Summary

This case study explains how Expedia, the online travel agent, used one emotional campaign strategy to tackle two different challenges in the UK and France.

In the UK the challenge was increased competition in the online travel category, leading to consumers choosing by price, and in France there was a less mature online travel market with Expedia a little known player.

The campaign targeted people who see travel as an essential investment in their well-being by positioning it as an investment in personal growth.

The 'Travel yourself interesting' campaign allowed ads to move away from clichéd imagery and focus on the impact travel has on people.

The PS4 was positioned as being for gaming only - in contrast to previous PS launches which had talked about multiple uses - and focussed on digital, with increased activity to include TV and cinema nearer the launch.

This resulted in increased European sales objectives by 20% and in the UK PS4 gained the position as market leader over its rival.

25

Sharing and owning: The rise of the hybrid consumer

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Vincent Rousselet, Market Leader, Quarter 4, 2014

This article discusses the rise of the 'hybrid' consumer and explores the underlying trends that are driving this development. View Summary

This article discusses the rise of the 'hybrid' consumer and explores the underlying trends that are driving this development.

The emerging 'hybrid' consumers are happy to spend heavily on the latest Apple product but also to save money on their weekly shop by going to discounters such as Lidl and Aldi.

At the same time, the 'sharing economy' has seen a rise in enthusiasm for products and services available to rent, rather than to own.

This new consumer landscape, which combines previously separate behaviours such as embracing rental with ownership and luxury with austerity, calls for new kinds of segmentation.